When most people hear the word “rushdown,” they visualize reckless offense. Believe it or not, that attitude actually works more often than it should, but not always and not against everyone. Of course, the more reliable approach is building a sophisticated offense on the fundamentals of footsies, but both methods share a lot of common ground.
There’s some vague threshold of aggression which varies with each individual you face, but crossing it overwhelms them. It fries their circuits and they start playing markedly sloppier or letting you get away with openings they clearly ought to punish. If you can make it past that line and maintain that aggressive pace, the risks you take will be counterbalanced by the mistakes they start making under pressure.
On the other hand, the closer you get to this threshold without crossing it, the more likely it is that you’ll get punished at every opportunity. What this means is, if you’re going to throw caution to the wind and go all in, you’d better be ready to run at full speed until somebody stops getting up. You can’t take your foot off the pedal, not even for a moment.
Rushdown is risky. That’s the nature of the game. There’s no way around it. Your success hinges on your ability to accelerate the match to the point where your opponent can’t think clearly anymore. This is going to sound obvious, but if whatever you’re doing isn’t working, then either speed it up or slow it down. (Who says you can’t have slow offense?)
Rushdown comes down to knowing more about the game than your opponent does. Of course that’s generally true of all play styles, but it’s especially important with rushdown. Think back to all the times you felt like someone was truly overwhelming you with their relentless attack. Has it ever happened without getting hit by at least one thing you’d never seen before? That element, no matter how subtle, is crucial to offensive momentum.
That’s where creativity factors in. It doesn’t matter where you find it – whether it’s an hour spent in Training Mode, or a gimmick you caught the CPU pulling, or something you saw in a combo video that you developed into a mixup. If your opponent spends even one second trying to figure out what they just got hit by, that’s one less second they have to anticipate your next move. In fact, novelty is a big part of what makes rushdown so much fun to watch, but it’s vital to understand that it’s not optional. You have to do it.
The main disadvantage to rushdown is you always have to work for it. Whenever you’re losing, working harder is the only way you can turn the tables. You always have to be on point with your execution, you always have to expand your knowledge of the game, and you always have to be on the lookout for new tricks and flashy combos you can use to confuse opponents.
That said, the real advantage to rushdown is that it’s fun, which means all this work doesn’t have to feel like work. Never let anyone take that away from you. Even when it’s time to play serious tournament matches, don’t forget to have fun!
This thread hits a nerve I suppose.
I wanna soapbox related to this!
Many factors come into play while rushing down. The one thing I want to inject here is the absolute importance of “just block that shit” when it comes to dealing with someone trying to “get in that ass.” Of all the advice I was ever given regarding how to deal with Tiger Knee traps or guessing games on cross up, the main reason rush down works is primarily due to the frantic desire to make it STOP on the part of the defender. So much so that they’ll rapidly attempt to soften/tech throws, or take a safe jump set up with the hopes that the opponent messes up and they get a free throw/ticket out.
You can’t bank on an escape move if your opponent has accounted for it, you can’t bank on an attempt to force an error that an opponent didn’t make if they jump in and hit confirm everything they do. You have to block. Rushing down doesn’t work if you’re on the receiving end of the pressure.
Part of building up your arsenal of options as a Street Fighter player is realizing just how powerful it is to NOT DO ANYTHING when being pressured other than block and study up. Often times, because your best solution is to just block and analyze what’s happening to you but sometimes that’s not readily apparent, players will ignore this in favor of the path of least resistance. This will cost you dearly. PR Rog in a recent Stream once again displayed his excellent ability to hit links… but his constant desire to escape cross ups with EX Dash Upper caused him to take even more damage than just getting hit by the cross up because of the white health cost of the EX Move’s super armor combined with the option select of Rufus Dive Kicks.
In a tournament setting, you may not have the luxury of time or matches to figure out what’s happening, but adopting the style of blocking when you are being pressured and taking time to figure out what an opponent is thinking pays off over time. You will understand your opponents more, and this longevity is much more rewarding than trying to execute that move that used to be your “get out of jail free card.” Chances are, the person rushing down has banked everything on punishing your desperation and continuing the pressure, resetting the guessing game and putting you back to square one.
Making it so an aggressive opponent is unsure of their options makes your options that much stronger when you do choose to go back on the offensive. The defensive side of the coin provides keen insight into the offensive side, and you’ll be better in the long term.
“Just block.”
Just blocking can really be dependent on a game to game basis though. Especially when games have incredibly fast high/low mixups and crossups.
Take MvC2 for example. During a Strider/Doom trap, your best option probably is to just block for most of it, considering that a lot of the time the damage from that trap comes from Strider getting a random unblocked hit in there and going into an air combo. On the other hand, good luck just trying to block against Magneto or Storm. And a messed up block against one of those two usually means a lost character.
I always fall back into the comforting arms of rushdown when I’m getting bored, even with Rose just FADC something and all out attack.
I know I shouldn’t rush down as much as I do, but it’s just too much fun not too. I will tone it down a little in Super so I can start winning more.
Nice article.
@EXC355UM
Too true.
I understand the concept but I still don’t get how to apply it. Whats the method?
rushdown while confusing the opponent with mixups they’ve never seen eh?
Well sounds like Rose is perfect, I mean most people don’t even know what she looks like.
Tarnish: Haha very true. But that’s the whole battle of wits, isn’t it? The offensive player struggling to overwhelm the defensive player who’s struggling not to be overwhelmed. For the defensive player it’s all about staying calm and keeping track of what’s going on. For the offensive player it’s all about working harder to up the pace. Whoever succeeds holds the tempo advantage.
Quick Man: I’d love to give you an easy answer but there isn’t one. If you want to improve your rushdown, you have to practice execution, develop unpredictable routines, find consistent ways to get in, continuously search for things that startle opponents, and so on. Pick one every day and work on it.
You know, I just have to say watching West Coast Warzone 2. Alex Valle demonstrated how to deal with Rushdown while fighting Online Tony. More importantly, Online Tony handed him the match in one of the most typical beginner mistakes I know of. Trying to do some fancy shit instead of playing solid. There’s a point in the set where Valle is full screen from Seth, life disadvantage and Seth has 2-3 EX Meter and Ultra. All Online Tony has to do is play Street Fighter and throw projectiles and tick him to death… instead he teleports behind Valle fullscreen after a sonic boom and Valle blocks and counters.
Then the end of the match, he does the most sick conditioning trick I’ve ever seen. Earlier Seth did his Hyakuretsu Kyaku on Valle after Valle did 2 Focus Attack back dashes… Valle uses the EXACT SAME set up and baits the move for an Dragon Punch FADC Ultra.
Everyone is amazed by a character who has 1,000 more options than most of the cast. What’s more amazing is just how solid Valle played against a character like that. When the smoke and mirrors, instant overheads, ambiguous cross ups, and teleports are all wiped away… the better player wins. Amazing.
man, can’t you do a guide on turtling :P
I second the turtling request.
I’ve always believed that it’s better to frustrate the opponent then to actually try to win.
Why bother going through the trouble of rushing that shit down when you can just down back it all day
Tarnish: Man, that sounds awesome. I didn’t get a chance to watch the live stream but i’m helluva looking forward to the replay now. It’s crazy how much of that conditioning stuff comes down to looking natural. Cuz if the other guy even catches a hint that you’re fishing for something, he’ll get all paranoid and not give you what you want. That’s bad news if you’re planning on psychic DP’ing something.
c001357, error1: Haha sorry, i’m from SoCal so i gotta rep the RTSD. But you’re right, it’s about damn time i wrote something about turtling. I’ll give it a shot soon.
i have really a really hard time with executing rushdowns. because i rush and i usually get caught in the mixups.
Yeah, it’s pretty easy to lose track of the big picture if you get too absorbed in rushdown. There’s no simple solution to that problem either, but if you notice that it’s happening to you a lot, then it’s probably a good idea to try another style – at least for a while. It’ll give you a different perspective on the game and you’ll start paying attention to more aspects of matchups, which will hopefully carry over when you go back to rushdown style.
@Tarnish
I just threw you instead of reading that.
@Fudd
but I don’t play online
rushing that shit down is always fun but it amazes me to this day how the hell poongkos offence is so crazy and all the stuff he gets away with.
@Fudd
Not only do I not play online, but now that I’ve met you and beat you clean in ST, you didn’t throw me worth shit, Fudd.
Hahaha did you guys really play?
@Maj
Yeah, Fudd is this shrimpy looking Indian kid with glasses. He posted up something called “Sirlin Saturdays” or some shit. We were playing on the ST Cabinet in the back of the Ballroom. He was my first match in the tournament that Ghaleon from Ohio ran. All of us had been playing on the cab and we said that there was just something off about the buttons. It would turn out that the serial connections were loose, and the controls just completely stopped when Zass from Seattle was fighting Halfro in Semi-Finals.
Anyway, I was swearing up and down that something was wrong but ended up playing anyway. I beat him 2 matches, apparently, as Guile vs Dhalsim. That match up is terrible for Guile in ST, but everytime I guessed he was going to do something other than wait and anti-air me, he was eating jump MK into cr MK. The whole time though I couldn’t get jump MK into cr MP into anything. Shit just felt wrong.
So we shook hands and I didn’t realize we hadn’t played 3 matches. I told him later before this would be brought up to me that I was sorry for anything awkward about the match and that I know that Guile doesn’t beat Sim in the way I had won. He tells me “The controls felt fine” and just sort of flippantly walks off… to tell the organizer we hadn’t played 3 matches instead of telling me.
By this point, I’m thinking in my head “I need to teach this kid a lesson.” I lose 2 as Guile and then just switch to Cammy and go to town. I win clean, and I don’t think anything of it… until I remember that some dude named Fudd made some smart assed comment to me on this website.
And lo and behold, they’re the same person. Kid might as well be Sirlin fan 316 to me now, he’s got a real smart mouth and a real weak game.
Crazy. Well, he’ll probably never see any of this but it’s pretty cool that you guys actually met up. Small world and all that.
Fudd: If you see this, money match next year! First to 5 for $20 or something. (Nothing too excessive.)